MARCH 13, 2026

Sainz, Norris back bosses in Mercedes engine row

Carlos Sainz and Lando Norris have added their voices to a bubbling dispute over the knowledge gap between Mercedes and its customer teams, backing the concerns raised by their respective team bosses after the Australian GP exposed a significant performance gulf.

Williams boss James Vowles said Melbourne had caught us off guard, admitting that Mercedes' deployment advantage only became visible in qualifying.

McLaren's Andrea Stella went further, saying it was the first time he had felt on the back foot as a customer - describing the process of learning the new power unit as acquiring a new language.

Both men stopped short of accusing Mercedes of withholding hard or software. The gap, they agreed, lies in knowledge of how to extract what is already there.

Sainz, speaking to Sky Italia in Shanghai, put it plainly.

They're much further ahead, said the Williams driver. "In Australia they didn't have more power, but more deployment. How did they do that? It's theirs, and they know how to extract it.

Our job is to find the same way to do it.

World champion Norris was careful with his words but acknowledged the issue is real - while also pointing the finger back at McLaren.

It's just early on in the season, there are a lot of things to try to figure out and understand, and it's just that it's not told, he said.

"Certain things don't need to be told, because you always try to create your own advantages. But at the same time, there are certain things we're having to figure out for ourselves.

"I don't know what the rules are and what has to be said and what not, that's down to Andrea and the rest of the team. But we've always worked closely. And we'll continue to do it. As much as he said some of these things, there were a lot of things we just didn't explore and maximise ourselves.

So that's kind of irrelevant at the same time, that if we just do a better job ourselves and maximised it and figured out more earlier, we would just do better anyway.

Norris also acknowledged that McLaren was always going to be at a disadvantage after Mercedes ran a more advanced power unit configuration during pre-season testing - one its customers did not have access to at that stage.

The fact we didn't have the newer power unit at an earlier point meant that we were always going to be on the back foot compared to a team that is performing extremely well and just more prepared than we are able to be, said the Briton.

I guess we just want to be able to be more prepared, and that's the main thing we've asked for.

Toto Wolff has defended Mercedes, insisting the works team has honoured all obligations to its customers and that the early gap simply reflects the steep learning curve of an entirely new formula.

(GMM)